T’Lyn gets a great character vehicle in “Empathological Fallacies,” a fun Lower Decks take on the “crew goes wild” trope in Star Trek that introduces some cool characters and concepts to the franchise in the process.
 
When the Cerritos is assigned to escort three Betazoid diplomats from Angel One to Risa, the crew begins experiencing a heightened emotional state — but after accusing the Betazoids of suffering from Zanthi Fever, it is discovered that T’Lyn’s mental projection of her emotional turmoil about her assignment to the Cerritos is the cause of the crew’s mania.
 

“Empathological Fallacies” is in many ways a sequel to “wej Duj” in that it picks up and grapples with the fallout of T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) being transferred to Starfleet service against her wishes. And while Mariner (Tawny Newsome) might be right — that T’Lyn’s former commander Captain Sokel is an idiot — the Lower Decks audience are so lucky he’s an idiot because she is a great character, and such a great addition to the show’s dynamics. After four episodes of being the straight woman to the excesses of the Cerritos crew, T’Lyn proves she can also hold her own in center stage of an episode too.

The T’Lyn/Mariner dynamic in this episode is great, and they play off well against one another as a duo. The humor in the dynamics of the core group of Lower Deckers is in Tendi’s (Noel Wells) thirst for T’Lyn’s friendship, but the relationship here with Mariner really sizzles and serves the overall episode immensely. I hope we see more of just the two of them together in the future.

This episode also reminds us that Vulcans really do have impressive mental abilities. It’s often less emphasized for Vulcan characters than their logic and lack of emotion, but episodes like this serve to remind me that Sarek’s Bendii Syndrome caused a whole Ten Forward to riot (in “Sarek”) and Spock influenced a guy’s mind through a wall just by touching it.

The ”it’s not Zanthi Fever, it’s actually maybe Bendii Syndrome, but we’re not going to really dwell on it” is a little hand-wavey, but not in a way that’s too distracting from the high points of this episode. From what we know about Bendii Syndrome up to this point — it did kill Sarek — it feels like T’Lyn just got diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and that should maybe have been taken more seriously. But the show is telling us that it’s not, and so I’ll go with it.

And we can’t forget to discuss how cool Dolorex, Katrot, and Cathiw are. Your previous experience with Star Trek tees you up to take these characters at face value. Oh, these are “women of a certain age” characters in the Lwaxana Troi vein, there to be the inciting reason for our crew’s distress, much like Troi’s big mess in DS9’s “Fascination.”  Discovering in the twist that they are Betazoid spies is unexpected and it’s a lot of fun — and who wouldn’t want those lipstick stun batons on their person? I know I do.

Choosing to make Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) the main character to interact with — and face down — the Betazoid spies was also a great choice. How often do you see four female characters over the age of 40 sharing a scene, and particularly an action-focused scene? I thought that was a great thing to see. Lower Decks has given us a number of wonderful guest stars, and I hope that we might see these badass Betazoids again in a future season.

And rounding out the episode, the C-story of Boimler (Jack Quaid) spending the day with Security and being both thoroughly unimpressed — and then thoroughly impressed — by their skills and life philosophy was a lot of fun. This is a classic Lower Decks take on a theme that runs throughout much of Star Trek’s depiction of security officers, which is that the best security officers aren’t the ones just looking to pick a fight but know exactly when aggression is appropriate. I enjoyed hearing Shaxs’ (Fred Tatasciore) philosophy about security, and it feels very relevant and enlightened in the way that you’d hope from a 24^th century starship.

Is it a little silly? Sure it is, because it’s an animated comedy. But there’s a really important message underlying that about the need to live a complete life and find balance between work and creative pursuits — and that’s a Malcolm Reed puzzle I can build all day long.

TREK TROPE TRIBUTE

• The Cerritos crew have a more complete “Naked Time,” “Naked Now,” “Fascination,” and “Singularity” experience in this episode than the brief “is this what Star Trek has become?” orgy simulation scenes in “I, Excretus.”

CANON CONNECTIONS

• The Betazoid “socialites” are being transported from the matriarchal society of Angel One to Risa.
• Boimler asks if the Security Department are going to teach him the Delta Quadrant wrestling technique of Tsunkatse (from the Voyager episode of the same name).
• The Betazoid disease Zanthi Fever was the cause of all the shenanigans in the Deep Space Nine episode “Fascination.”
• Boimler correctly guesses Kayshon’s Starfleet Officer Charades pick was Odo from swimming in a bucket.
• One of the sacred security officer rituals is a puzzle of Star Trek: Enterprise’s Malcolm Reed.
• Bendii Syndrome was experienced by Spock’s father Sarek, and impacted the emotions of the Enterprise-D crew in “Sarek.”
• The painting of Vulcan’s Forge in T’Lyn’s quarters is based upon a screenshot from the 2001 DVD edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition. (The image was slightly modified for the 2022 Blu-ray edition.)

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch makes her Star Trek debut as Dolorex.
• Katrot mentions how much she likes Starfleet carpeting, matching the feelings of many Star Trek fans following recent live-action shows’ decisions to forgo the carpet in favor of hard flooring.
• “I’ll devour whoever I want, Dolorex, you sanctimonious buzzkill” is a great line.
• We learn in this episode that Caitians and Betazoids have a past; at one point in history centuries before, Caitians hunted Betazoids for sport and food.
• Katrot’s baseball hat says “It’s Romulan Ale O’Clock Somewhere!”
• The rowdy party music, in classic Star Trek fashion, is classical music.
• The Worf poem goes “Worf, Worf, torn between worlds. A warrior? No, a farm boy. The son of Mogh. Clang goes the bat’leth against the armor of your heart!”
• I love seeing the animated Romulan Warbird.

“Empathological Fallacies” is a thoughtful episode with a good mix of fun and action. It cements T’Lyn’s role in the Cerritos dynamic, and lightly connects to the season’s overall arc with the reveal to our crew of the mysterious vessel that has been destroying ships throughout the season.

We still do not have much clue where this story is heading, but it’s an intriguing addition to Lower Decks and I am excited to see where it goes.